


A final comfort that is small but not cold; the heart is the only broken instrument that still works

by Two_Divided_by_Zero



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, I stand by my headcanon that Futaba and Yusuke are best bros, M/M, My half of the angst off, Phone drabble, Pining, Pining Yusuke, Spoilers??? Probably?, one-sided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 16:49:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11235141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Two_Divided_by_Zero/pseuds/Two_Divided_by_Zero
Summary: Ask me why I keep on loving you when it's clear that you don't feel the same way for me. The problem is that as much as I can't force you to love me, I can't force myself to stop loving you. ~ Anonymous





	A final comfort that is small but not cold; the heart is the only broken instrument that still works

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd as heck  
> Written on a phone  
> None of the quotes belong to me  
> To be honest, I had a lot of fun writing this. I love angst and pining and sometimes you don't always get your happy ending....  
> I apologize in advance for the grammar and spelling. Hooray phone!  
> ENJOY!

_Desire_.

Like many a great artist, once Yusuke decided upon his newest inspiration, he dove into research head first. People watching (ignoring the occasional whispers of “creep” and “weirdo”), reading bodice rippers with the name in the title (which….he sincerely regrets) and even asking other Kosei students what they thought.

 _Lust_ , he had to keep specifying, _is different than desire_.

So he read and he painted and he threw canvases out, mourning the death of his inspiration along with the faith in his former teacher.

How...delightful, then, that he found inspiration in the most unexpected location.

He'd been walking to the dorms from a farther subway station that usual (even in the garbage, those prototypes still cost quite a bit) when a bright splash of color caught his eye.

Graffiti text, poorly lined and garishly colored, lined the wall. Ugly though it was, as an artist, Yusuke could still appreciate the finer nuances the artist must have been going for. 

The overall shape of the font was beautiful and Yusuke could tell the artist had at least planned well for the space they wrote on. It was only then that he read what was written.

“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”

That…

It was poignant, yes, but it made something cold slither around his heart. Goemon spoke wordlessly from within his soul, soothing the chill and offering wordless comfort.

Still…

Yusuke was reminded of another comment he'd heard from a classmate, that ‘all artists are masochists because you can't spell painting without pain.’

(He'd always been the sort to feel too strongly, to love too deeply. Madarame often used to,scold him for his fits of pique, but it couldn't be helped; the heart wanted what it wanted. While never directed at a person, per se, Yusuke had always been,and would always be a person of passion.)

The greatest punishment….

“Maybe…” Yusuke murmured out loud to Goemon, “maybe Akira can me find my inspiration?”

He nodded to himself, already drafting the text message to his leader and trying to ignore his persona’s mild agitation.

\---

It was foolish, believing that this wouldn't happen. He should have heeded Goemon’s advice and called someone, _anyone_ else, for advice.

Realizing he loved Akira didn't come immediately, not at all. It was insidious, like termites slowly eating into a house, or ants gradually building their underground cities.

It was the way Akira had smiled at his...disaster at the exhibition, called it beautiful when no one else would. It was his defending Yusuke in front of that other Shujin academy student when he was throwing words like “eccentric” and “weird.”

It was answering the late night pleas for somewhere to with air conditioning, even offering coffee and curry that left his belly and heart full.

It was seeing Joker, their magnificent, _glorious_ leader, offer a shadow “anything you want, just give him back unharmed” when a misplaced fire spell resulted in him being taken hostage.

Even sitting at this bench in LeBlanc, sketching their ragtag team, Yusuke could feel it squirming and writhing in his gut.

He loved Akira, truly and deeply.

And it hurt.

God, did it hurt.

So he sketched and he erased and tried to ignore how disconnected from it all he felt.

\---

Ann had once told him, back when,he'd been researching desire and its happy connotations, that the cliche was butterflies in your stomach.

“I've never actually felt it,” she adamantly denied with a suspicious blush, “but its said so often, it can't be wrong?”

They're wrong, he should have said then, but hindsight always was 20/20, wasn't it?

Mealworms. Yusuke had once known a student at Kosei with a pet lizard that ate mealworms, which he kept in the refrigerator (disgusting). Apparently, if allowed to mature in normal temperatures, they became moths.

Mealworms were a far more accurate description, Yusuke felt, of his “desire” for their leader. Disgusting and writhing, they left him feeling physically ill every time that smile was directed at Ann or Ryuji, or god forbid _Akechi_.

And occasionally, just rarely, Akira would smile at _him_ and he'd feel the brush of a tiny wing tickling his innards.

One time, after he's eaten a mushroom he's foolishly accepted from Futaba, he felt his stomach flip in mementos. As he vomited along the side if the tracks, Oracle apologizing profusely, he idly looked for shreds of wings in the bile.

How foolish; something as delicate as a moth could never survive in a stomach, much less a moth.

Still, he looked.

\---

“‘Unrequited love does not die; it's only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded.’”

“Inari…”

Apparently, love sickness presented physical symptoms because it was enough to catch Futaba's attention. She had rather insistently shown up at the station one day before dragging him to the café to ‘build some social links.’

“It's alright” - it wasn't - “I'll get over it.”

That part was at least true, maybe.

Futaba poked her cute parfait, visibly trying to not bring her legs up on her seat in public. “Why are you so convinced that he doesn't care?”

“Oh,he cares.”

“Then wha-?”

“But not…” not in the way he needed.

Futaba plopped a strawberry onto his saucer and he gave a watery laugh; she wasn't being comforting, she just didn't like strawberries. Typical girl.

“Have you told him? You're counting yourself out of the race before it's even begun!”

“I don't have to,” be assured, trying to keep his hands from shaking. “Joker - Akira - is a free spirit, the essence of the wild card. I've seen…”

He paused to take a sip of his coffee, to quell the moths tickling at his throat.

“With Ann, with Ryuji, with you… even Akechi…”

“Yusuke…”

“I knew you knew my name!” Yusuke attempted to laugh, but it came out watery and weak.

Futaba reached over the table to take the hand not currently wiping tears from,the corners of his eyes. Later, in the cocoon of his dorm room, he's realize what a huge step that was for a former shut in. “I know it doesn't feel like it, but this won't last forever.”

“‘Unrequited love does not die; it's only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded.’”

Stunned speechless for what felt like the first time ever, Futaba just tightened her grip on his arm. He watched her, with his cultivated artist's eyes, visibly calculating how to respond.

Finally… “what are you, a preteen girl mooning over her boy band crush?”

He paused. “I suppose that is a rather apt description, yes.”

Now pushing the parfait to the side (both ordered food under a pretense anyways, paid for by their thrives fund), Futaba leaned across the table to take both his cheeks into her tiny hands. “So, we're going to make a plan. You like plans, right?”

He nodded,,even if that wasn't particularly true. “Okay, we're going to go back to your stinky, stinky Kosei dorm. We're going to set my,laptop up in some sort of free space and we are going to watch garbage television all night. Well...until the dorm monitors kick me out. Deal?”

“We-”

“Okay, Inari, sometimes people ask questions that aren't really questions. We'll discuss it more on the walk there. Pack up your artist crud and let's go!”

On the way there, he overheard her mumble “whoever said ‘it is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all,’ is full of it.”

He couldn't agree more.

\---

Every broken heart has screamed at one time or another: "Why can't you see who I truly am?"

Desire and Hope, his _piece de resistance_ hung proudly from the walls of the hall.

In true fashion, Yusuke rubbed elbows and mingled with the patrons. Why yes, he is rather young. No, the trauma of his teacher's arrest is no longer affecting his life. Yes, it is entirely his creation with no theft from anyone else.

Through it all, Akira stood there, beaming at him through the crowd. The moths danced in his heart and tickled his throat, but he tried his best to choke them down, like an unsavory hors d'oeuvre.

Akira loved all his friends. Loved him, loved Morgana, even loved Akechi.

As Yusuke looked at his piece, his declaration to his unrequited love, he swallowed down the sadness and kept smiling that plastered on smile Madarame was so insistent he learn.

Maybe, one day, it wouldn't have to be like this. Maybe he could look at Akira and just feel gratitude for saving him, for extending friendship to the “weird” boy.

But for now…

Today was not that day. Tomorrow didn't look likely either.

So he smiled and he thanked Akira for all his help and _prayed_ to whatever God would listen that he never fall in love again.

\---

_Only three things are infinite: the sky in its stars, the sea in its drops of water, and the heart in its tears. ~ Gustave Flaubert_

**Author's Note:**

> My goal was to make people's heart hurt. Did it work?
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment telling me I'm a horrible person for hurting our soft artist boy (OR EVEN BETTER IF YOU ENJOYED IT!!!)
> 
> THANK YOU FOR READING!!!


End file.
